


Honour Among Thieves

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Crimson Dawn, F/M, Introspection, Morally Ambiguous Character, Set During Canon, Sith, The Dark Side of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 16:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15733185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Qi'ra doesn't get many opportunities to do the right thing.





	Honour Among Thieves

**Author's Note:**

> This is the Qi'ra I saw in that film. Only took me a few months to write a character study...

"You go on. I'm right behind you."

 

The worst thing about it, of course, was that - in its way - it was true. Many of the things Qi'ra said were true, for a given value of the truth, which made her dangerous, because you couldn't tell exactly when she was lying. Many people had fallen prey to that. Beckett. Calrissian. Dryden himself, in the end, had not been able to recognise the part of the truth that was a lie - and Dryden had told her that her ability to lie with the truth was the very reason he had helped her raise herself from the gutter, taken the tattoo on her wrist and made it into jewellery worth more than her life, couture fit for a queen of Naboo. He'd believed he was immune to it, or he would have killed her rather than let her rise through the ranks, never mind teaching her Teräs Käsi, a discipline which only improved her skills. In the end he'd been wrong, but it had taken a great deal to make her test herself against him.

 

She could promise people the galaxy, and it would be true. It just wouldn’t be the whole truth.

 

Qi'ra had never had any use for the whole truth, except for the brief, halcyon period when she'd felt love - or something very like love - for a boy with dreams bigger than his smile, eyes like the stars, and far more luck than judgement. As a girl, she had told Han the whole truth, admitted to her wishes and fears, and hoped, desperately, for a life of freedom in the hyperlanes.

 

She could have been happy, if she'd been a little braver, a little luckier, or a little faster. As it was, she enjoyed a measure of professional satisfaction, and that would have to do. That, and the knowledge that she was doing the right thing - a gift which had rarely lain under her hand when she was Dryden's lieutenant, and which would probably only be slightly easier to secure now that he lay dead on the floor, with the reins of power lying in her fingers, if she chose to grasp them.

 

Qi'ra walked around Dryden's luxurious office, inspecting the valuables: the statues, the historical curios, the jewels. There was plenty here for the taking, and no doubt Han believed that was what she was doing. But Han didn't know the whole truth of the Crimson Dawn - didn't know anything about the man who even Dryden feared - and Qi'ra did. To leave with Dryden's prized collection, and identifyherself as his murderer by fleeing the scene, would be to place her life in even greater peril than it already was. It would be to sign her death warrant, and append Han's name as an accomplice.

 

He still had dreams bigger than his smile and eyes like the stars, and one day, all his luck was going to run out. Qi'ra was determined not to contribute to that.

 

He didn't know how hard things had been after their separation in the Corellia spaceport. He didn't know what she'd done to buy her life back, or to crawl out of the sewer they had both been raised in. Qi'ra was glad he didn't know, and hoped he would never find out.

 

He wouldn't be safe when she did this. But he'd be safer, and that was enough. He'd survived years in the Imperial fleet, and then the Imperial infantry. He could keep going. He could live, and take his own chances. They would be better without a Sith at his heels.

 

 _You go on. I'm right behind you._ Of course Han had believed it; he was sweet that way. And Qi'ra wanted him to have the chance to keep being just that sweet, just for a little while longer. Oh, her leaving would sting enough to sour him for a little while, she was sure of that. He still cared about her very much, and it was possible that he still believed himself to be in love.

 

Men have died, and worms have eaten them, but not for love. Han would survive. He would get the coaxium back off Beckett - he'd kill the duplicitous fool, too, or Qi'ra would arrange for it next chance she had - and he'd take his reliable and reliably violent Wookiee friend, and see the galaxy. He wasn't a very gifted grifter, liar or cheater, but he had a great deal of luck and the resilience to keep pushing through the worst, so if the galaxy was even halfway kind he'd be fine. And one day he'd meet someone who could wear his heart in a crown and treasure it honestly. Someone who wasn't Qi'ra, who always had her finger on the truth, and only ever told part of it. Someone who didn't have half her eye on an empire that she had helped to build; someone who hadn't grown up knowing that crime paid better than honesty, or, if they were a person like that, somebody brave, clever or foolhardy enough to try to get out.

 

Qi'ra fell into none of these categories.

 

Qi'ra took Dryden's ring of office, and took up her place behind his desk. The weekly call would be coming through any moment now. If she were courageous enough, stupid enough, or sufficiently willing to sacrifice Han, now was the time to snatch some jewels and run after him. He would be deliriously happy until the chase began.

 

 _You go on. I'm right behind you._ It was the same line every self-sacrificing secondary hero in a holodrama got. Usually Qi'ra could do better than that, but it had worked on Han, which said very little for his sense, and everything in the world for his trusting nature. And it was true, of course, part of the truth. She was right behind him, and for the sake of his life and the only life she'd ever known, that was exactly where she'd stay. Maybe she'd see him again: maybe he could become her favoured courier, her preferred man of business. For a few fleeting seconds she indulged fantasies along those lines. He had had the impetus to get them out of the deepest pit anyone in the Corellian System could be born in, but apart from that, she'd always been the ideas woman. He would follow her lead easily provided she didn't ask him to do anything truly vile. But he wasn’t really cruel enough for the life, not the way she had learned to be, and for his sake, Qi'ra hoped she never saw him again.

 

He must be out and moving to confront Beckett by now. Once she had finished the call she would order servants in to remove Dryden's body, and have the ship set moving. They had places to be. Work to do. A thorough purge of all Dryden's personally fanatical employees to conduct. Exactly the kind of thing Han could never countenance, and just the sort of task Qi'ra had taken on from day one at Crimson Dawn.

 

She'd hidden her tattoo from Enfys Nest's fighters, though that hadn't worked on Nest itself for long. The girl was perceptive enough to see all the blood on Qi'ra's hands that Qi'ra couldn’t hide, and smart enough to know it would never come off.

 

The hologram snapped into life. The projector was large and expensive enough to use full colour, though the Sith was still faintly blue-tinged. The black of his tattoos and robes, and the red of his skin, remained vibrant.

 

Qi’ra emptied her mind and bowed her head. "My lord."

 

Han would be grieved if he knew, but he'd still try and fail to save her. It was better not to let him find out.

 

Darth Maul's face split into its leering smile. "Qi'ra."


End file.
